Old video of Israeli basketball player on plane shared with false claims it shows Flydubai attack aftermath

A video has been shared online supposedly showing passengers celebrating after surviving an incident on an Israel-bound Flydubai flight last week where one pilot attacked the other. But the clip is at least a year old and unrelated.

The video shows a man walking down the aisle of a plane carrying a speaker playing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’, which translates to ‘The People of Israel Live’, while other passengers clap and film on their phones.

The caption of one version shared on Facebook over 600 times claims the video shows “partying on the flight home to Israel” after the incident.

We found the clip was posted by the Israeli media outlet Sports 5, in August 2025. The video’s caption, translated from Hebrew by Google, says “Don't take a sleeping pill: this is what it's like to be on a plane with [basketball player] Yam Madar”.

Yam Madar plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball Club. We have found no evidence or credible reports that Mr Madar was on board the Flydubai flight in question.

Other verified footage shows passengers on board after the plane landed in Saudi Arabia.

Another Facebook post sharing the miscaptioned footage says: “After a terrifying ordeal aboard a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, passengers were finally safe, and this was their response.”

That post includes the old video of Mr Madar on a plane, but has overlayed it with a clip of the Flydubai flight passenger Itzhak Liber, recounting what had happened during the incident in a post to his own Facebook account. A second clip edited onto the end shows passengers cheering and clapping in their seats and was reportedly taken when the Flydubai plane landed in Saudi Arabia.

Misinformation often spreads quickly on social media, so it’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is genuine before sharing. Our toolkit provides guides on how to verify pictures and videos.